Looks beautiful, but thats about it...

Rating: 5/10 (14 February 2002)

Its hard to believe that the same person who directed the fabulous, Oscar winning film, Cinema Paradiso, directed this film. While the 1988 Academy Award winning Italian film was a film set in reality, it's effect was magical and captivated me all the way to the very end. Legend of 1900, which in all respects is supposed to be a fable with elements of fantasy (such as Tim Roth playing the piano as if possessing four hands, or a scene where Roth plays the piano as it rolls around on the deck of a ship during a storm), it is firmly grounded in the mundane.
The cinematography, costume, music and set design in this movie are truly great, and for all intents and purposes, the movie looks and sounds fantastic. However the ham-handed dialogue, uninteresting story, and messy editing really undercut this film. Everybody in the film is trying in one way or another to let you know that this guy 1900 is truly a magical and unique guy. They are either crowding around to shower praise upon him, or staring at him dreamy-eyed. 1900's best friend, Max, played by the perpetually twitchy-eyed Pruitt, latches on to 1900 and develops a strange, puppy-dog like idol worship. He smiles and gazes at Tim Roth's character as if though he were some sort of latter-day Messiah -- but I just don't see it. 1900 is portrayed here as nothing more than a great pianist with a bad case of agoraphobia. He comes off more as a coward than a hero. The only reason why we know 1900 is a great man, is because the film bashes you over the head with this knowledge through heavy-handed, cheesy dialogue.

Speaking of the dialogue, it was way too sappy, and felt extremely unnatural. This might be due to the fact that this was Giuseppe Tornatore's first English dialogue film, however the speech and dialogue patterns of this film from the main characters to the extras and side-players all felt rather forced and over-the-top. I was literally laughing at the scene where 1900 was trying to give his "crush" a record as she was disembarking (or being pushed-off) the ship. I also found Pruitt's acting during the emphatic "piano duel" scene with Clarence Witherspoon III extremely reminiscent of Chris Farley as he throws a fit and eats paper. I love Chris Farley, but his style of acting doesn't belong in a film like this.
There were times where I found myself bored and actually fast-forwarding through parts of this movie. All in all, a good try by a great director, but this is a most definitely a miss.